A researcher is studying the amount of sleep college students get each night. She notices that there is a lot of variability in the data, with some students typically sleeping for around 8 hours a night and some sleeping around 5 hours a night. One way to measure how spread out the data scores are is to use:
A) the arithmetic mean.
B) meta-analysis.
C) inferential statistics.
D) the standard deviation.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the data is, so it would be the most appropriate choice for measuring the variability in the amount of sleep college students get each night. The other options (arithmetic mean, meta-analysis, inferential statistics) are not measures of variability.

A Researcher Is Studying the Amount of Sleep College Students